Great Western Coffee Shop

Primary school pupils helped launch a new train service linking South Devon with London yesterday.
 
Torbay Mayor Nick Bye joined the Class Four children from All Saints School, Babbacombe, to see the new service off from Paignton station.

The train is the new 7.06am service from Paddington introduced in this winter's First Great Western timetable.
 
This train gets into Paignton 40 minutes earlier than the existing service. That train forms the new 11.06am direct return to Paddington which it is hoped will boost business and tourism to the area.
 
The children were there because they won a competition to come up with a name for the new train, the Devon Express.
 
Mayor Bye and local councillors worked with members of the Torbay Rail Users Group and First Great Western to secure the service.

As well as the exciting news about the extra seats, we have just been given permission by the Department for Transport to implement some timetable changes in May and start a formal consultation on some important prospective changes for December.

I've just seen this on Railnews which has some interesting snippets:-


snip...

Further ahead, FGW will consult on a proposal to reroute the current 07.06 Paddington to Paignton service to Cornwall, which would provide earlier arrivals of around 40 minutes at Totnes, Plymouth and stations to Penzance.

To balance this change, the 07.30 service from Paddington to Penzance would run to Paignton via Bristol instead, providing better connections with South Wales. The company said there would be a journey time improvement to Exeter St David's, Torquay and Paignton of 19 minutes.

3.13 Penzance
(a) On Mondays to Fridays and Saturdays, one service from London Paddington, arriving in Penzance before 1330, shall call.
(b) On Mondays to Fridays and Saturdays, two services (one on Saturday) to London Paddington shall call, one of which shall depart Penzance after 1715.
(c) On Sundays, one service from London Paddington arriving in Penzance before 1415 shall call.

Hi Chris,
I have been told of a couple of comments on the coffee shop about the potential improvements for Devon and Cornwall, however I can't seem to log in.
Would you mind reiterating to members that this is a consultation for any changes to be implemented in the December timetable change, and not the forthcoming May timetable change, aside from those mentioned in the final para.
Many thanks,
...

West of England ^ potential improvements to services

First Great Western has announced that it will begin a formal timetable consultation on proposed changes to its West of England services in response to customer and stakeholder demand.

First Great Western Managing Director Mark Hopwood said: ^After the tough times the West of England has faced in recent weeks, First Great Western has been considering how it can improve the train service between London and key destinations in Devon and Cornwall. Working with Network Rail and the Department for Transport we have developed proposals that could deliver improvements from December 2014 onwards.^

The current 0706 Paddington to Paignton service would run to Plymouth and key stations in Cornwall; achieving around a 40 minute earlier arrival than today^s first London train at Totnes (1007), Plymouth (1035) and through to Penzance (1237).

The present 0730 service from London Paddington to Penzance would run to Paignton via Bristol, retaining London connectivity, but with the added advantage of improved connectivity from South Wales and Bristol to Torbay. Torbay and Exeter would gain a 19 minute journey time improvement, with the present 1106 Paignton-London train leaving later and still arriving in London Paddington at 1454.

From Cornwall high speed services to London would be more evenly spread through the day.  New journey opportunities would be created by the introduction of a 1133 Paddington to Exeter service and a 1453 Exeter to London service.

There would be a number of consequential changes to local services in Devon and Cornwall and along the Berks and Hants route.

In advance of this consultation FGW is pleased to announce that it has reached agreement with DfT on a number of timetable changes that it will be introducing in May. These changes will provide for additional strengthening of services across the West of England in the summer. Features include the use of a High Speed Train on the Bristol-Weymouth route on summer Saturdays to provide more capacity to and from the coast; more capacity on the Cornish and Devon branches; use of a loco-hauled train between Par and Exeter on summer Saturdays and the extension of a high speed London service to/from Weston-super-Mare on summer Sundays.

Be a good use of stock but I thought it was only the number of sleeper coaches which changed at weekends rather than seated coaches?

What capacity would such a service add, and the benefit of starting from Par as surely there will be all the Newquay summer services providing this journey already?